Inmarsat and Actility deliver world’s first global LoRaWAN™ network to power IoT applications

February 8, 2017 | posted by Matt Bacon |

Inmarsat, the leading provider of global mobile satellite communications services, today reveals how its LoRaWAN -based Internet of Things (IoT) network, developed in partnership with Actility, the industry leader in Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN), is delivering on its strategy to bring the IoT to every corner of the globe. Early applications in Asset Tracking, Agribusiness and Oil & Gas are helping businesses in remote regions of the world become more efficient, reduce costs and drive new revenue through IoT-based solutions.

Inmarsat and Actility’s three early IoT applications cover:

Asset tracking: Tracking the location, movement, health and other key statistics of cattle on a remote ranch in Australia, replacing the manual process of sending an employee to look for cattle that have strayed. An alert is sent out to the ranch manager when an animal is at risk of being lost, is behaving erratically, or is nearing the perimeter of the ranch, enabling the owner to take immediate action.

Agribusiness: Monitoring the water levels in reservoirs and soil moisture at the roots of plants across the breadth of a large, remote palm oil plantation in Malaysia to deliver water to where it is most needed and achieve maximum crop yield. This enables smarter resource management in an area and reduces the amount of land required for production.

Oil & Gas: Remote monitoring of oil platform processes where cellular coverage is patchy or non-existent to identify potential failure points so that they may be addressed and costly downtime avoided. An upstream production site continuously measures operational parameters and transmits them to a control room where a SCADA system adjusts set-points and provides control settings.

The Inmarsat LoRaWAN network, powered by Actility’s ThingPark™ LPWA platform, is the world’s first global IoT network. It allows customers and partners to cost-effectively bring to market IoT solutions that can be delivered anywhere in the world, to any type of business, with LoRaWAN-based connectivity on the ground and satellite connectivity as the network backbone. The integrated platform provides an end-to-end solution that transmits site-specific data to applications in the cloud for analysis, delivering insights and supporting decision making, and creating value for the end customer.

“These three early applications are indicative of the industrial IoT market in general: businesses don’t need an off-the-shelf IoT solution for Agribusiness or Asset Tracking; they need a specific solution for a specific problem,” said Paul Gudonis, President, Inmarsat Enterprise. “Through our collaboration with Actility, we have the building blocks to tailor solutions for each specific opportunity, no matter where it is in the world.”

“Actility has worked on many large-scale nationwide LPWA network deployments, but this is bigger: we’re fantastically excited about being part of the first truly global IoT network in partnership with Inmarsat,” said Actility CEO Mike Mulica. “Our collaboration with Inmarsat allows us to provide customers with an end-to-end solution to connect their assets and fulfill their IoT business needs anywhere in the world. We’ll be working alongside Inmarsat every step of the way to help global customers address their specific needs with more efficient, best-fit solutions.”

Inmarsat and Actility last year announced a partnership that combines Inmarsat’s global L-band satellite connectivity platform with Actility’s ThingPark IoT management platform to deliver an integrated solution for IoT, linking connectivity, services and IoT devices from a single application and service management point, to connect objects deployed anywhere on the planet.

Actility is also now part of Inmarsat’s Certified Applications Provider Programme (CAPP), which allows third-party companies to develop applications and solutions that are compatible with Inmarsat’s satellite communications network.

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